Comparative Literature 100 - INTRO:THE PLEASURES OF READING

Topics course. May be repeated once with a different topic.: Starting in the late 18th century, avant-garde artists began to explore the claim that logic and rationality cannot account for all of human experience; they were fascinated by madness, dreams, the irrational and the sublime. We investigate this phenomenon from a literary, artistic and philosophical point of view, from the time of the Enlightenment philosophers to the 20th century. We read stories by Nerval, Tolstoy and Kafka; Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights; poems by Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Rilke, as well as philosophical essays. The class incorporates artwork from the Romantic and symbolist eras. (E)

Topic: Dreams, Magic and the Sublime in Modern European Literature.